If you’re thinking about selling a car, then you’ve got several avenues to consider, but the best one by far is selling to a dealership. Want to know why? This article will explain.
Selling Privately
Let’s explore selling privately first, so that you have a clear understanding of the alternative. Selling privately means doing everything yourself, posting listings, finding buyers, negotiating prices, providing test drives, selling a car is a ton of unpaid work before you get the actual value of the car back.
It can take months depending on your luck, you’ll need to develop a nose for people who are actually interested and not just roping you along or trying to scam you. If you’re good and if you’re patient, then you might be able to get a good price for your car, if you’re really good, maybe more than it’s worth, but it will take a lot of time and a lot of effort.
Time Is Money
A dealership will not offer you any more than what the car is worth, that’s true, however, they’ll also take the car in your hands quickly and simply. When you sell with a dealership you’re working with a professional who will handle all of the complicated things that come with selling a car for you, saving you countless hours.
You need to make a value judgement of how much your time is worth, yes it is generally more likely you’ll get more for the car on a private sale, but if it requires months of stress to do it is the extra $1000 really worth it?
As the old saying goes, time is money, you could spend those months trying to get more, or you could get it sorted in a week and be driving a newer car instead. Speaking of which.
Trading Up
When you’re selling a car it’s very likely that you’re also looking for a new one, when you sell a car to a dealership you can handle both of these things at once. Whatever amount of money you’re able to get from the dealer can be applied directly to the cost of your next car.
If you get $4000 for the used car, and you’re looking to buy a new car that costs $18,000, then you can reduce that price down to $14,000. How is that different to just taking the cash and then using the cash to buy the car? Because doing it this way also reduces the total of the loan.
Functionally for your financial situation, that car now costs $14,000 which means you take out the remaining loan for only $14,000 and you only pay tax on the $14,000. It’s a significant financial savings.
Doing this requires buying and selling from the same dealership of course, but as long as you know what you’re looking for that’s an easy enough thing to do.